It is one of life's inevitabilities that no matter how skilful and well-intentioned the execution of a government inquiry, its findings and recommendations never seem to go far enough. On Wednesday, the 466-page final report of the board of inquiry into historical sexual abuse at Beaumaris primary school and certain other government schools was tabled to parliament. The report does …
On Monday morning, in a sleek office building in Melbourne's inner north, public hearings commenced for the Victorian government's board of inquiry into historical child sexual abuse in Beaumaris Primary School and certain other government schools. It was on just such a trip, alongside three other boys who were part of Steele's "special" group, that the course of 11-year-old Grant …
Glen Fearnett is one of those pragmatic characters who refuses to embellish the anecdotes from his amateur sporting career. Glen Fearnett says he was abused in 1972 by convicted paedophile Gary Mitchell, a Beaumaris Primary School teacher and assistant coach of the St Kilda Little League team. Fearnett says his abuse had occurred five years earlier than Owen's, at the …
As evening approached on October 21, 2018, an emaciated, sickly man with hollow eyes and an agitated manner staggered along Bay Street in Port Melbourne, limping and muttering, scattering startled passers-by. In the 1970s, it belonged to Graeme Owen, Rod's father, the man of whom he has said: "When he died, I died too." I remember so vividly what happened …